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Myanmar Waste Scoping

Misssion Report

Commissioned by the ministry of Foreign A:airs

Scoping Mission on Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) to Myanmar

Report of findings – June 2017

An assignment for the Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (www.rvo.nl)

Scoping mission on solid waste management in Myanmar page 2

You are cordially invited to join the LinkedIn Group

"Netherlands-Myanmar cooperation and business on Solid

Waste Management" at:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13516372

Cover photo: Car tyres reused as waste bin in Mandalay.

The Expert Team

Mr. Herman Huisman has a long track record in public service in the Netherlands, having

worked for the Scientific Council for Government Policy and as the initiator of the Dutch

Commission on Environmental Impact Assessment. In 1991 he was asked to set up the Bureau

of the Waste Management Council. Nowadays, Mr. Huisman is coordinator of international

projects at Rijkswaterstaat Leefomgeving and active in many countries (amongst others, China,

Brazil, Colombia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, South Africa, Tanzania and Myanmar).

Mr. Herman Huisman, RWS Leefomgeving, +31 6 51175992, [email protected]

Mr. Hans Breukelman is a chemical engineer with decades of experience in waste

management, wastewater treatment and soil remediation. He has worked for private companies

such as DSM Research BV, Attero and Essent Environment, public authorities (e.g. Province of

Overijssel) as well as at NGO's such as the National Foundation for Nature and Environment.

Currently he has his own company called BreAd B.V., providing environmental consultancy

services, interim management, representation and waste trade services.

Mr. Hans Breukelman, BreAd BV, +31 6 51422706, [email protected]

A Mechanical Engineer by origin, Mr. Bert Keesman of the company MetaSus is an

experienced consultant in the field of exports promotion in environmental technologies, with a

special focus on English speaking countries and Latin America. Among other assignments, he

has worked for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

(ESCAP) in Bangok, Thailand and for the UNIDO supported Technology Management Center

in Costa Rica. He is involved in many export promotion projects, especially in Latin America,

Africa and Asia.

Mr. Bert Keesman, MetaSus, +31 6 12699014, [email protected]


Table of Contents

Summary ...................................................................................................................................................... 5

အႏစခပ ......................................................................................................................................................... 6

1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 9

2. A bird’s eye on Myanmar...................................................................................................................... 11

2.1 A brief introduction ........................................................................................................................... 11

2.2 Myanmar in a global perspective ...................................................................................................... 12

3. Current ISWM situation in Myanmar ................................................................................................. 13

3.1 Waste production and expected growth ............................................................................................ 13

3.2 Waste composition ............................................................................................................................. 14

3.3 Waste collection, transfer, treatment and recycling .......................................................................... 14

3.3.1 City cleaning and waste collection ............................................................................................ 14

3.3.2 Transfer sites .............................................................................................................................. 17

3.3.3 Treatment facilities .................................................................................................................... 19

3.3.4 Recycling ................................................................................................................................... 20

3.4 Waste disposal ................................................................................................................................... 23

3.5 Costs, fees and affordability .............................................................................................................. 26

3.5.1. Current costs and fees ............................................................................................................... 26

3.5.2. Costs and fees for adequate facilities and operations ............................................................... 28

3.5.3. Affordability ............................................................................................................................. 28

4. Waste policies, laws and regulations .................................................................................................... 29

4.1 National legislative framework ......................................................................................................... 29

4.2 Local level ......................................................................................................................................... 29

4.3 Example: The Concept Waste Master Plan for Yangon 2040 ........................................................... 30

4. Private sector opportunities .................................................................................................................. 31

4.1 Waste related private sector in Myanmar ......................................................................................... 31

4.1.1 Myanmar companies .................................................................................................................. 31

4.1.2 Myanmar (sectoral) trade support organizations ....................................................................... 33

4.2 Dutch programs applicable in Myanmar .......................................................................................... 34

4.3 Quick wins in waste and business opportunities ............................................................................... 36

5. SWOT overview ..................................................................................................................................... 38

6. Conclusions and recommendations for follow-up ............................................................................... 39

6.1. Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 39

6.2. Recommendations for follow-up ....................................................................................................... 39

7. Sources .................................................................................................................................................... 43


List of figures

Figure 1. Waste collection vehicles in Yangon, Meiktila and Mandalay .................................................... 18

Figure 2. Images of the recycling chain in Myanmar .................................................................................. 22

Figure 3. Images of waste disposal in the streets and at dump sites in Myanmar ........................................ 25

List of tables

Table 1. Projected population figures for Yangon and Mandalay in mln 2015 - 2026 ................................ 13

Table 2. Daily waste production in Yangon and Mandalay in tons/day 2015 - 2026 .................................. 13

Table 3. Waste employees, vehicles and push carts in Yangon and Mandalay ........................................... 16

Table 4. Cost of waste collection model in Yangon (100% service coverage) ............................................ 27

Table 5. Current monthly waste fees in Yangon and Mandalay (in MMK) ................................................ 27

Table 6. Legislative framework for the waste sector at the national level ................................................... 29

Table 7. Concept master plan of the PCCD Yangon March 2017 ............................................................... 30

Table 8. Some additional environment related companies in Myanmar ...................................................... 32

Table 9. NGO’s currently working on waste management in Myanmar ..................................................... 32

Table 10. Dutch policy instruments applicable in Myanmar ....................................................................... 35

Table 11. Quick wins for the waste sector in Myanmar .............................................................................. 36

Table 12. Waste related business opportunities in Myanmar ...................................................................... 36

Table 13. SWOT overview waste management in Myanmar ...................................................................... 38

List of boxes

Box 1. Water and Waste: a potentially fatal combination ........................................................................... 10

Box 2. Unveiling the beauty of Yangon: the Alley Garden Project by Doh Eain........................................ 15

Box 3. The key role of transfer stations ....................................................................................................... 19

Box 4. A supermarket chain trying to get rid of plastic bags ....................................................................... 21

Box 5. Mount Zwegabin Plastic Free Zone ................................................................................................. 21

Box 6. Opportunity: Raising the life expectancy of Yangon’s landfills ...................................................... 26

Box 7: A powerful ally: Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi ........................................................................................ 38

Box 8. “Holland model” on Solid Waste Management ............................................................................... 40

Annex: List of contacts

Abbreviations EfW Energy from Waste

EIA Environmental Impact Assessment

EPR Extended Producer Responsibility

ISWM Integrated Solid Waste Management

MCDC Mandalay City Development Committee

MRFs Material Recycling Facilities

MMK Myanmar Kyat (exchange rate 120417: 1

EUR = 1,417 KS)

ODA Overseas Development Assistance

PCCD Pollution Control and Cleansing Department

SEZ Special Economic Zone

SWM Solid Waste Management

WWTP Waste Water Treatment Plant

YCDC Yangon City Development Committee


Summary

The Netherlands and Myanmar enjoy a constructive relationship, working hand in hand on enhancing

Myanmar’s resilience to floods in view of its large delta areas, rivers and coastal zones. It was observed that in

some areas, effective action to mitigate the risk of floods was impeded by the tremendous amounts of litter and

waste scattered over river banks and clogging up drainage systems. In order to properly assess the situation and

identify opportunities for cooperation and business, an Expert Team carried out a scoping mission in the period

13-24 March 2017. The focus was on Yangon, Meiktila and Mandalay. The mission concluded with a seminar

on waste management in Myanmar and opportunities for cooperation, with a participation of almost 40 waste

sector representatives from Myanmar.

The Expert Team concluded that waste is indeed a big problem in Myanmar. Litter is all around, creating health

hazards, obstruction of waterways and an unattractive public environment. All in all Myanmar’s 57 million

inhabitants produce around 20,000 tons of waste per day, or 0.35 kgs/pppd. In spite of lower official figures, the

“guestimate” of the Expert Team is that in Yangon and Mandalay, the waste output is in the range of 0.8

kgs/pppd. Waste collection and transport leave much to be desired and the waste is disposed in thin layers on

large dump sites without proper infrastructure. From an institutional point of view, there is a lack of specific

legislation for the waste sector, and there appears to be a disconnection between the federal and city authorities

when it comes to waste management.

There are encouraging signs, however. One of the first official acts of the de facto leader of the country Mrs.

Aung San Suu Kyi was to take to the streets of Myanmar to pick up rubbish, stating “Garbage collection is the

first thing we can do to serve the people”. Some organizations and individuals have followed her example.

Yangon and Mandalay have banned the use of plastic bags, and City Mart has its “No Plastic Bag Day”. As a

heritage of the years of isolation when resources were scarce, there is a pretty strong (be it largely informal)

recycling sector.

The Expert Team encountered a remarkable consensus among waste sector representatives in Myanmar on the

road ahead. “What we need is awareness raising and Waste to Energy”. In spite of some initiatives in Waste to

Energy, the Expert Team recommends to put this option on hold for the foreseeable future as it is way too

expensive compared to other options. Awareness raising is indeed very valuable, but only in case a proper waste

infrastructure and a sustainable financial base for the waste sector are created at the same time.

There are quick wins in upgrading Myanmar’s waste sector. In its recommendations the Expert Team focuses

primarily on Yangon as the biggest single source of waste in the country. The first recommendation is capacity

building among present and future staff in waste management. Then the waste collection and transport system

can be optimized. The development of waste transfer stations will save costs and ease traffic. Yangon’s

dumpsites need an upgrade from the current “pancake disposal” strategy towards a controlled landfill with

liners, methane extraction, daily coverage, leachate treatment and possibly an on-site separation / recycling

facility. The system of fee collection needs to be improved so the overall system becomes self-sustainable at city

level. The recycling industry can be professionalized, building on the already existing infrastructure. In

Mandalay, cooperation can be sought with the cement industry to see whether part of the waste can serve as

alternative fuel.

The Netherlands is planning to organize a (one week) seminar on Sustainable Waste Management in October or

November 2017 for CDC representatives and other stakeholders. Under the right circumstances, the Netherlands

is also willing to investigate the feasibility to introduce the so called “Holland Model” of waste management in

Yangon: a professional SWM organization, a basic sanitary landfill, suitable logistics and transfer stations and

financial self-sustainability of the overall system.


For the moment, business opportunities in waste management in Myanmar for Dutch suppliers of products and

services will oftentimes be related to Overseas Development Assistance. The strategy outlined above will

undoubtedly lead to additional opportunities. In view of the strong connection in Myanmar between water safety

challenges and waste problems, it is worth investigating whether projects can be initiated in the framework of

the Sustainable Water Fund program of RVO.

အႏစခပ

နယသာလနႏငငႏင ျမနမာႏငငသည အေပါငးလကၡဏာေဆာငသည ဆကဆေရးရၿပး ျမနမာႏငင၏ ကယျပန႔သည

ျမစ၀ကၽြနးေပၚေဒသ၊ ျမစမား၊ေခာငးမားႏင ကမးရးတနးေဒသမားတြငျဖစေလရေသာ ေရႀကးေရလမႈမားက

ခႏငရညစြမးအား ျမငတငရနရညသနလက ႏစႏငင လကတြေဆာငရြကလကရပါသည။ အခ႕႔ေနရာမားတြင

ေရႀကးေရလမႈအႏရာယ ေလာနညး ေစရနအတြက ထေရာကသည ႀကးပမးေဆာငရြကမႈမား လပေဆာငရာတြင

ျမစကမးပါးနေဘးတြင ျပန႔ကေနေသာ အလြနတရာ မားျပားလသည အမကမား၊ ေရစးေရလာစနစမားက ပတဆ႔ေစ

သည အမႈကသရကမားႏင စြန႔ပစပစၥညးမားက အတားအဆးမားျဖစေပၚေစလကရၾကသည။ နယသာလနနငငမ

ကၽြမးကငသမားပါ၀ငသည ေလလာ ေရးအဖြ႕တစဖြ႔က စြန႔ပစပစၥညးမား စမခန႔ခြမႈအေျခအေနမားက စနစတက

ေလလာသးသပရန၊ အတတကြ ပးေပါငး ေဆာင ရြကရန ႏင စးပြားေရးအခြငအလမးမား ေဖာထတႏငရနအတြက

၂၀၁၇ ခႏစ မတလ ၁၃ -၂၄ ရကေန႔အတြငး ျမနမာႏငငသ႔ လာေရာကခသည။ အဆပါအဖြ႔အေနႏင

ရနကန၊မတလာႏငမႏေလးၿမ႕မားက အဓကထား ေလလာသးသပခၾကသည။ အဆပါ ေလလာေရးအဖြ႕၏

ခရးစဥအဆး၌ ျမနမာ ႏငငတြင ‘စြန႔ပစပစၥညးစမခန႔ခြေရး ႏင ပးေပါငးေဆာငရြကျခငး အခြငအလမးမား’ ဆငရာ

ႏးေနာဖလယပြ တစရပ ကငးပနငခၿပး ထႏးေႏာဖလယပြတြင ျမနမာႏငငရ စြန႔ပစပစၥညး က႑မ

ျပညတြငးျပညပကယစားလယမား၊ နငငေတာ၀နထမးမား၊ လပငနးရငမား စစေပါငး ကယစားလယဥးေရ(၄၀) ခန

ပါ၀င တကေရာက ေဆြးေႏြးခသည။

ျမနမာႏငငတြင စြန႔ပစပစၥညး ျပနာ သည အထးအေလးထားရမညျပနာတစရပ ျဖစေၾကာငး ကၽြမးကငသမား

အဖြ႔က သးသပခသည။ ေနရာအႏ႔တြင ရေနသည အမႈကမားက ကနးမာေရးအတြက အႏရာယ ျဖစေစသညအျပင

ေရလမးေၾကာငးမားက ပတဆ႔ေစကာ အမားျပညသသြားလာသည ပတ၀နးကငေနရာမားက

အကညးတနေစသည။ ၅၇ သနးေသာ ျမနမာျပညသတစရပလးက တစေန႔လင အမႈက တန ၂၀,၀၀၀

(တနခနႏစေသာငး) ခန႔ (သ႔) လတစဥး တစေန႔လင ၀.၃၅ ကလဂရမခန႔ စြန႔ပစေနသည။ တရား၀ငထတျပနေသာ

ကနးဂဏနးမားအခကမားအရ နညးေန ေသာလညး ကၽြမးကငသမားအဖြ႔၏ ‘ေတြးဆခန႔မနးခက’ မားအရ

ရနကနႏင မႏေလးၿမ႕မားတြင လတစဥး တစေန႔ လင စြန႔ပစသည အမႈကပမာဏမာ ၀.၈ ကလဂရမမ

ရမညျဖစသည။ အမႈကသမးစနစႏင အမႈကသယယ စနစ တ႔မာ လအပခကမားစြာရသညအျပင၊

အမႈကပသညစနစမာလညး အေျခခအေဆာကအဥ စနစတကမရသည ေနရာ မား၊ ရၿပးသားအမႈကပမားေပၚတြင

စြန႔ပစပစၥညးမား ထပခါထပခါ ျဖန႔ကကာ စြန႔ပစသညစနစက သးေနျခငးမားက ျမငေတြ႔ရသည။

အဖြ႔အစညးရႈေထာငမာၾကညလငလညး ျမနမာနငငတြင စြန႔ပစပစၥညး က႑အတြက သးသန႔ဥပေဒ မရသညက


ေတြ႔ရရၿပး စြန႔ပစပစၥညးစမခန႔ခြမႈအတြက ျပညေထာငစအစးရႏင သကဆငရာျမ႕ေတာႏင ျမနယ

စညပငသာယာေရး အာဏာပငမားၾကား အဆကျပတေနသည အေျခအေနမားက အထငအရားေတြ ျမငႀကရသည။

သ႔ေသာလညး အားတကစရာလကၡဏာမားစြာလညး ေတြ႔ရရပါသည။ လထေခါငးေဆာင ေဒၚေအာငဆနးစၾကည ဥး

ေဆာငသည ပထမဥးဆး တရား၀ငလႈပရားမႈမားတြင ‘အမႈကေကာကျခငးမအစျပ၍ ျပညသ႔အကး သယပး ၾကပါစ႔’

ဟေသာ လႈ႔ေဆာခကျဖင လမးမားေပၚတြင အမႈကေကာကသည လပရားမႈတစရပ ပါ၀ငခသည။ သမ ဥးေဆာင

သည လႈပရားမႈက အဖြ႔အစညးအခ႕ ႏင တစဥးခငးပဂၢလမားမ လကနာလပေဆာငၾကသည။ ရနကန ႏင မႏေလး

ၿမ႕မားတြင ပလပစတစအတမား သးစြျခငးက ပတပငလကၿပး စးတးမတကလညး ‘ပလပစတစအတ မသးရေန႔’

သတမတေပးထားသည။ ႏစေပါငးမားစြာ အထးကနေနထငလာခသည အကးဆကအျဖစ ရငးျမစမား ရားပါးကာ

(အမားအားျဖင နညးလမးတကမဟတေသာ) ျပနလညအသးျပသညက႑ အားေကာငးေနသညက ေတြ႔ရရသည။

ျမနမာႏငင၏ ေရ႕ဆကေလာကလမးရမည လမးခရးတြင စြန႔ပစပစၥညးက႑ႏငပတသက၍ ‘ကၽြႏပတ႔ လအပ

သညမာ အသပညာေပးျခငး ႏင စြန႔ပစပစၥညး မ စြမးအင ျဖစေစရန’ ျဖစသညဟေသာ ထးျခားသည သေဘာတ ည

ခကတစရပမာ စြန႔ပစပစၥညးက႑ဆငရာ ကယစားလယမားအၾကားတြငရေနသညက ကၽြမးကငသမားအဖြ႔

အေနျဖင ျမငေတြ႔ခရပါသည။ အမႈကမ စြမးအငထတရန အစပးလပေဆာငမႈမား ရေသာလညး အျခား နညးလမး

မားႏင ႏႈငးယဥပါက ကနကစားရတ အလြနပင ႀကးျမငေသာေၾကာင ထကစၥက အခနကာလ တစခအထ

ေခတဆငးငထားရန ကၽြမးကငသမားအဖြ႕က အႀကျပခသည။ အသပညာေပးလပငနးမား ျပန႔ပြားေအာင

လပေဆာင ျခငးမာ အကးရေသာလညး စြန႔ပစပစၥညး စမခန႔ခြေရးက႑ဆငရာ စနစကနသည

အေျခခအေဆာကအဥႏင ေရရညတညတသည ဘ႑ာေရး အေျခခတ႔က တၿပငနကတညး ဖနတးနငရန

လအပသည။

ျမနမာႏငင၏ စြန႔ပစပစၥညး က႑က ျမငတငရာတြင လငျမနစြာ ေကာလႊားႏငသည အခကမားလညး ရပါသည။

ကၽြမးကငသအဖြ႔၏ အႀကျပခကမားတြင တစႏငငလး အတငးအတာႏငၾကညပါက ရနကနျမ႕သည စြန႔ပစပစၥညး

အမားဆးထြကသည ေနရာျဖစသျဖင ပထမဆး အာရစကသငသညၿမ႕အျဖစ သးသပအၾကျပ ထားသည။ ပထမဆး

အႀကျပခကမာ စြန႔ပစပစၥညးျပနာက စမခန႔ခြသည လကရတာ၀နထမးေဆာငေနေသာ ၀နထမးမားႏင အနာ

ဂတတြင တာ၀နထမးေဆာငမည ၀နထမးမား၏ စြမးေဆာငရညက ျမငတငေပးရနျဖစသည။ ထ႔ေနာက အမႈက

သမးစနစႏင သယယပ႔ေဆာငသညစနစက ပမေကာငးမြနေအာင ေဆာငရြကေပးရနျဖစသည။ စြန႔ပစ ပစၥညးမား

က ယာယအမကစေဆာငးသမးဆညးလကခေနရာမားက ေဖာေဆာငေပးျခငးျဖင ကနကစားရတ သကသာေစၿပး

လမးပတဆ႔မႈ ျပနာကလညး ေလာနညးေစမည ျဖစသည။ ရနကနျမ ႕ရ အမႈကစြန႔ပစသညေနရာမားက လကရ

အသးျပေန သည ေျမျပငညေနရာေပၚတြင စြန႔ပစပစၥညးမားက ဖအားသးကာ ကစလစေစၿပး အၾကမၾကမ ထပမ

စြန႔ပစသည နညး (Pancake Disposal Strategy) မ သတမတေနရာတြင စြန႔ပစပစၥညးမားမစြန႔ခင သဘာ၀

ပတ၀နးကင ပကစးမႈ ေလာနညးေအာင ေျမျပငေပၚတြင လငနာချပး ထနးခပေပးသညစနစ၊ စြန႔ပစပစၥညးမားမ

မသနးဓါတေငြ႔ ထတျခငး၊ စြန႔ပစ အမႈကမား က ေန႔စဥေျမျဖင ဖးအပသညစနစ၊ စြန႔ပစပစၥညးမားမ ထြကရလာသည

အဆပအေတာကပါ၀ငသညအရညက အႏရာယေလာနညးေအာငျပျပငေပးသညစနစ ႏင ျဖစႏငပါက

စြန႔ပစသညေနရာတြင ပစၥညးအမးအစား ခြျခား ျခငး/ ျပနလညအသးျပႏငသညေနရာမားျဖင


အစားထးအဆငျမငတငေပးရန ျဖစသည။ အမႈကသမးခ ေကာကခ သညစနစအား ပမေကာငးမြနေအာငျပျပငပါက

ျမ႕ေတာအဆင စနစတစခလး ကယတငရပတည၍ ေရရည တညတႏငမညျဖစသည။

လကရအေျခခအေဆာကအဥေပၚ မတည၍ စြန႔ပစပစၥညး ျပနလညအသးျပသည လပငနးမားက

ပမစနစကနေအာင လပေဆာငႏငသည။ မႏေလးတငးေဒသၾကးအတြငးရ ဘလပေျမထတ

လပသညလပငနးမားနင ပး ေပါငးကာ စြန႔ပစပစၥညးအခ႕က အစားထးေလာငစာအျဖစ ျပနလညအသးျပႏငေခ

ရ/မရ ကလညးေလလာ ဆနးစစၾကည ႏငပါသည။

နယသာလနႏငငအေနျဖင ေရရညတညတမည စြန႔ပစပစၥညး စမခန႔ခြမႈဆငရာ ႏးေႏာဖလယပြက ျမ႕ေတာစညပင

သာယာေရး ေကာမတမား မ ကယစားလယမား ႏင အျခား သကဆငသမား အတြက ၂၀၁၇ ခႏစ ေအာကတဘာ

လ သ႔မဟတ ႏ၀ငဘာလတြင (တစပါတၾကာ) ကငးပရန အစအစဥရပါသည။ အေျခအေနေပးပါက ‘ေဟာလန

စနမနာ’ ဟေခၚဆႏငေသာ ကၽြမးကငသည စြန႔ပစအစငအခ စမခန႔ခြမႈ အဖြ႔အစညး၊ သန႔ရငးသည အေျခခ

အမႈကစြန႔ပစ စနစ၊ သငေလာသည ေထာကပပ႔ေဆာငေရးအစအစဥမား၊ စြန႔ပစပစၥညးမား ယာယသေလာငသည

ေနရာမား ႏင စနစတစခလးအတြက မမဘာသာရပတညႏငၿပး ေရရညတညတသည ဘ႑ာေရးစနစ တ႔ပါ၀ငသည

စြန႔ပစပစၥညး စမခန႔ခြမႈပစက ရနကနၿမ ႕တြင စတငမတဆကႏငေခ ရ/မရ ေလလာဆနးစစရနလညး

နယသာလနအစးရက လလားလကရပါသည။

လကရအေနအထားတြင ဒတခ ကနပစၥညး ထတလပေရာငးခသမား ႏင ၀နေဆာငမႈေပးသမားသည ျမနမာႏငင၏

စြန႔ပစပစၥညး စမခန႔ခြမႈဆငရာ စးပြားေရး အခြငအလမးမား လပကငေဆာငရြကရန ‘ႏငငရပျခား ဖြ႕ျဖ းတးတကမႈ

အကအညအစအစဥ’ ႏင မၾကာခဏဆသလ ခတဆကလပကငရမညျဖစသည။ အထကေဖာျပပါ နညးဗဟာမ

အျခား အခြငအလမးအသစမားဆသ႔ ဥးတညေခၚေဆာငသြားမညဆသညအခကမာ ယမားသသယျဖစစရာမရေခ။

ျမနမာႏငင ႏင ဆကသြယမ အားေကာငးေနျခငးေၾကာင‘နယသာလန စးပြါးေရးလပငနးမားဆငရာ ေအဂငစ’

(အာရဗြအ) အေနျဖင ျမနမာနငငတြင ၾကေတြ႔ေနရသည စတခရသည ေသာကသးေရရရေရးလပငနးဆငရာ

စနေခၚမႈမား ႏင စြန႔ပစပစၥညး ျပနာမားအၾကား၊ ေရရည တညတႏငသည ေသာကသးေရဖလေရး

ရပေငြအစအစဥ၏ မေဘာငအတြငး စမကနးမား စတငႏငေခ ရ/မရ ေလလာဆနးစစမႈမား ျပလပႏငလင

အကးရႏငမညျဖစပါသညဟ တငျပလကရေပသည။


1. Introduction

A strategic location between the rapidly growing markets of India and China, diverse reserves of natural

resources and a huge consumer market within its reach: Myanmar has it all to be the next “Asian Tiger”. A

sustained economic growth of 8%-9% per annum is expected for the coming years. Opportunities arise for

Dutch companies, especially in agriculture, water, infrastructure, logistics and energy.

In 2011, Myanmar started to democratize and to open up its economy. The EU member states and most

other countries have lifted their sanctions against the country. Currently, economic growth has increased to

8.5% annually. Myanmar is in a perfect position to enjoy a long period of high growth. The country is one

of the last untapped markets: it has plenty of unused arable land, vast oil and gas reserves, more fresh

water resources than any other country in the region, and one of the world’s largest gemstone deposits.

Perhaps more importantly, located between China, India and Thailand, Myanmar lies in the heart of the

world’s fastest-growing regional economy. It is estimated that in 2030 half of the world’s consumers live

within a five hour flight of Myanmar.

The country faces enormous environmental challenges. The 2014 Environmental Performance Index ranks

Myanmar 164th out of 178 countries. In almost every other aspect of performance related to regulation or

infrastructure, Myanmar scores among the lowest globally.

The Dutch water sector is already active in Myanmar, providing support in enhancing its resilience to

floods in view of its large delta areas, rivers and coastal zones. One of the most important issues in water

management is the presence of both solid waste, causing extreme levels of pollution and urban floodings,

and liquid waste polluting the fresh water resources that are currently still abundant.

Myanmar’s 57 million inhabitants produce an estimated 20,000 tons of solid waste per day, a good part of

it in the main cities Yangon and Mandalay. This volume is expected to rise rapidly and will cause serious

(health and environmental) problems if not properly dealt with. At the same time it may provide a future

market with opportunities for companies and institutions in Myanmar and the Netherlands.

In order to explore such opportunities for cooperation and business, in the period 13-24 March 2017 a

Dutch Experts Team on Integrated Solid Waste Management (ISWM) carried out a scoping mission to

Myanmar. Team members included Mr. Herman Huisman of Rijkswaterstaat Leefomgeving, Mr. Hans

Breukelman of BreAd BV and Mr. Bert Keesman of MetaSus. The team cooperated closely with the Dutch

Ambassador to Myanmar Mr. Wouter Jurgens and his team, notably Miss Carola Baller and Miss Sandar

Myint. Further support was provided by Yangon based private consultant Mr. Felix Haas.

The goal was to assess the situation regarding waste management in Myanmar (focusing on the cities

Yangon, Mandalay and Meiktila) and to explore opportunities for future public and private sector

cooperation and business in ISWM between the Netherlands and Myanmar. To facilitate the latter, an

ISWM workshop was held on March 23 in Yangon with a broad participation of almost 40 representatives

of the public and private sector in waste management in Myanmar. For a list of contacts the reader is

referred to Annex 1.

In this report, an overview of the findings of the Experts Team is presented. It is not meant as a

comprehensive or scientific overview of the waste situation in Myanmar. For this, the reader is referred to

publications such as the IGES and GRET reports as listed under “Sources”. The purpose of the current

report is to serve as a basis to draft a cooperation strategy (a “Roadmap”) between Myanmar and the

Netherlands on ISWM.


Box 1. Water and Waste: a potentially fatal combination

The scoping mission on waste originated out of the ongoing cooperation program on water management

between The Netherlands and Myanmar. It was observed that the rampant littering and dumping of

waste in many places in Myanmar creates an urgent threat to water safety:

· Blockage of drainage systems leads to flooding, especially in the monsoon season

· Blockage of sewer systems leads to flooding of sewerage causing cholera outbreaks

· Waste dumped in surface water damages ecosystems and contaminates water resources for

drinking water and irrigation purposes

· Waste in pools, directly adjacent to residential areas and markets, creates the ideal breeding

ground for vector-borne diseases

· Plastics dumped into rivers eventually end up in the ocean, adding to the “plastic soup”

Myanmar clearly has a problem in this field. Especially in the highly populated metropolitan area of Yangon, where according to the “guestimate” of the Expert Team one million tons of waste is left in the streets each year. The upside is that one can kill two birds with one stone: by improving Myanmar’s waste management the water situation will become more sustainable at the same time.

Piles of litter along the rivers Water and waste in close contact

Pools of dirt next to food on the market Water ways clogged up with waste


2. A bird’s eye on Myanmar

2.1 A brief introduction

“We have been asleep for sixty years, and now we’re waking up”. Such was the

summary of the current situation in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) shared

with the Experts Team by the Mayor of Mandalay Dr. Ye Lwin (photo right).

After decades of military regime, in November 2010 the ruling Union Solidarity

and Development Party (USDP) decided to free the leader of the democratic

movement Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi. In the November 2015 free elections her party

National League for Democracy (NLD) gained an overwhelming majority in

parliament. Parallel to these changes, Myanmar has opened up to the outside

world and is now seeking to claim its position in the international business community.

Myanmar is part of South-East Asia and borders Bangladesh,

India, China, Laos and Thailand. With its 676,577 km2 of

surface area, the country is roughly the size of France and 16

times the Netherlands. All in all the country is home to

around 57 million inhabitants. The main cities are Yangon

(formerly Rangoon, over 7 million people), Mandalay (1.2

million) and Naypyidaw (about 1 million). Yangon used to be

the capital, but in November 2005 the Myanmar Government

decided to build a new capital 320 kms to the north and name

it Naypyidaw.

Myanmar is subdivided into 22 administrative divisions.

Yangon and Mandalay are both separate regions. The city of

Yangon and the Yangon region pretty much coincide,

whereas Mandalay region is significantly larger than the city

with over 6 million inhabitants. The mayors of the cities also

hold key positions in the region. As an example, the Mayor of

Mandalay Dr. Ye Lwin is also the Minister for Development

Affairs of the Mandalay region.

The current scoping study focuses on Yangon and Mandalay

as the main concentrated sources of waste in the country.

Additionally Meiktila was visited for a brief assessment of

the waste situation in a smaller city (115,000 inhabitants).

This does not mean that elsewhere in the country the

problems regarding solid waste are not equally severe.

Actually, in some rural areas the problem may be worse due

to the lack of waste collection services. However, because of their size and resources, it is more likely that

Yangon and Mandalay will be able to implement effective measures to improve their waste situation. In

the future these cities may serve as reference points for solid waste management improvements for the rest

of the country.

Yangon and Mandalay are roughly in the center of Myanmar with a flat geography and approximately at

sea level. They are 700 kms apart. Both cities are situated along the Irawaddy river, which can be

considered the logistical artery of Myanmar. The majority of the population of the Yangon and Mandalay


regions is ethnically Bamar (Burmese), whereas some more remote states in Myanmar are home to ethnic

minorities such as the Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Kayah, Mon, Rakhine and Shan. In some cases there are

tensions in the remote areas, notably with the Rohingya ethnic group in the western Rakhine state. Other

areas are rich in metals, ores, industrial minerals and/or coal, which in itself is a blessing for the country

but cannot be explored to the full because of civil unrest or the fact that some areas and resources are

controlled by warlords.

2.2 Myanmar in a global perspective

Myanmar is in a special phase of its development. The parameters below can help to put the country in

perspective relative to other countries.

Per capita income

According to the World Bank (2015 figures), Myanmar’s GDP is EUR 1,097 per year, right between

Bangladesh and Cambodia. Neighboring Thailand scores an annual GDP of EUR 5,492, exactly five times

as much. In many ways Myanmar and Thailand are comparable. The difference in GDPs shows the amount

of ground Myanmar still has to cover but also the tremendous potential now that the country is opening up.

GDP Growth

With an annual GDP growth rate of 7.3% in 2015, Myanmar came in 9th in the list of fastest growing

countries in the world.

Trade freedom

In terms of Trade Freedom, the Heritage Foundation places Myanmar in the "Mostly Unfree" category on

place 146 (between Sierra Leone and Vietnam). Ominous as this may sound, since 2010 the country has

experienced a continuous upward trend of 36.7% trade freedom to 52.5% (75.8% for the Netherlands).

Corruption

On the 2016 corruption perceptions index of Transparency International Myanmar ranks # 136 out of 176

countries in the list. Again, since 2010 the country's performance has consistently improved.

Education

On the UNDP education index Myanmar is at place 150, between Angola and Rwanda.

All in all, it is evident that the “60 years of sleep” have taken their toll on Myanmar’s development, but the

changes in the past years towards a more democratic form of government have sparked a period of stable

growth in many aspects.


3. Current ISWM situation in Myanmar

3.1 Waste production and expected growth

Yangon and Mandalay are the largest cities of Myanmar. According to the last census of 2015 the Yangon

metropolitan area houses 7.4 million inhabitants of which 5.2 million are living in the urban areas and 2.2

million in the rural parts. The average household has 4.4 members. Mandalay’s last census was in 2014

and showed 1.5 million inhabitants, of which 1.3 million lived in the urban areas. The average household

in Mandalay has 4.9 members. These population figures should be treated with some caution. Both cities

are home to large numbers of informal “floating” settlers who are not included in the census data.

Annual population growth is expected to be around 2.5% for Yangon and 2.0% for Mandalay. This leads

to extrapolations of the population figures as shown in table 1 below.

Year 20→ 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Yangon 7.4 7.6 7.8 8.0 8.2 8.4 8.6 8.8 9.0 9.2 9.5 9.7

Mandalay 1.5 1.5 1.6 1.6 1.6 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.8 1.8 1.8 1.9

TABLE 1. PROJECTED POPULATION FIGURES FOR YANGON AND MANDALAY IN MLN 2015 - 2026

When it comes to municipal waste production, the uncertainty in the available data becomes problematic.

The Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC), the agency in charge of waste management, reports a

per capita production of 0.41 kg of municipal waste per day whereas Mandalay’s MCDC provides a figure

of 0.65 kg/day. A closer look at these figures reveals that they reflect the volume of waste reaching the

cities’ dumpsites and do not include waste not collected, burned, dumped elsewhere or recycled / reused.

Based on international data and both cities’ GDP, for the purpose of this report a current average

production of 0.8 kg per capita per day in both cities is assumed, growing towards 1.0 kg per capita per

day in 2025. This leads to the waste volumes as presented in table 2.

Year 20 .. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Yangon 5,920 6,220 6,531 6,853 7,188 7,535 7,895 8,268 8,656 9,057 9,473 11,651

Mandalay 1,200 1,261 1,324 1,389 1,457 1,527 1,600 1,676 1,755 1,836 1,920 2,362

TABLE 2. DAILY WASTE PRODUCTION IN YANGON AND MANDALAY IN TONS/DAY 2015 - 2026

Currently Yangon’s dumpsites receive an average 2,500 tons of waste per day and the ones in Mandalay

900 tons. In line with our assumption of a daily waste output of 0.8 kg/pppd, a daily 3,500 tons in Yangon

and 300 tons in Mandalay do not reach the dumpsites and are “lost” somewhere in the urban areas.


3.2 Waste composition

The composition of Yangon’s and Mandalay’s waste is reported by a number of sources, all mentioning a

considerable content of organic waste and plastics. This composition generates opportunities in treatment

by composting/digestion and sorting.

Visits to dumpsites in both cities showed evidence for this composition as illustrated by the pictures below.

3.3 Waste collection, transfer, treatment and recycling

3.3.1 City cleaning and waste collection

City cleaning and the collection and treatment of waste in most cities in Myanmar is dominated by the City

Development Committees (CDC’s). These public authorities are able to operate highly centralised services

on city cleaning and waste collection for the entire metropolitan areas. Private companies are virtually

absent, apart from some initiatives on “cash for trash”.


The Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) has divided its services into four districts (north, east,

south and west) covering 33 townships. City cleaning has serious deficiencies. Apparently, the central

business parts of the city are serviced with daily sweeping and cleaning, but outside these areas such

services are not provided. At times, the poorer parts of the city and the industrial areas show extreme

littering.

Extreme littering and the near absence of city cleaning appear to be the most important waste problem in

Yangon. Litter is all around, even in the wealthier areas of the city. Most inhabitants seem to be reluctant

(or unaware) to cooperate in keeping their city clean. Waste is thrown out of apartment buildings into the

alleys and open areas and is not removed by municipal services. Street-sweeping services are deployed

primarily during (early) morning hours but in many areas they are absent.

Box 2. Unveiling the beauty of Yangon: the Alley Garden Project by Doh Eain

The abundant litter in Yangon literally hides the city's beauty, both to residents and visitors. A few

weeks before the Expert Mission visited, Yangon based Doh Eain social enterprise started to convert

the back alleys of Yangon into alley gardens. This initiative is spearheaded by Dutch national Emilie

Röell, who lives in Yangon herself. The first activity was to convert 20 meters of alleyway on lower

27th street into a vegetable garden, a children's playground and a place for socialising. The initiative

received a great response from local media and the authorities, suggesting that the abundant litter is

widely perceived as a problem and the possibility of using these mini dumps as public spaces

recognised. The mayor of Yangon Mr. U Maung Maung Soe came by and ordered the whole alley to be

cleaned up. As a next step Doh Eain intends to clean up 1 km of alleyway. Their campaign can be

followed through Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/DohEainYGN/ or on www.doheain.com.

Contact: Mrs. Emilie Röell, [email protected], Tel. 95 9 789749423.

The waste is covering the streets and public areas and is piling up between houses, at market places and in

drainage systems. It leads to direct and daily contact of Yangon’s inhabitants with waste, to contamination


of food and drinking water, to adverse effects of waterborne diseases and to blocking of sewerage systems

leading to sewage floods in the rainy seasons. Apart from these health effects it leads to a reduced

attractiveness of the city and to the discharge of waste and plastics into the rivers, deltas and the sea.

Yangon claims a more than 90% coverage of waste collection but data indicate otherwise. Our estimate is

that only 45% of the waste is reaching the dumpsites. There is some separation of recyclables by informal

collectors but the percentage does not exceed 5%. So around 50% of the municipal waste stays behind

somewhere in the city. This percentage equals a daily 3,000 tons. Spread out over Yangon’s surface this

means that on a yearly basis every square meter has to deal with 1.4 kg of littered waste.

The situation in Mandalay appears to be a little better. Litter is all around too, but city cleaning and waste

collection seem to be more effective. A mere 25% of the waste does not reach the dumpsite and stays

behind in the city (equaling 0.3 kg/m2.year).

Municipal solid waste collection systems in Myanmar cities are labour intensive and rely on both manual

workers and non-specialised vehicles. In general, the current waste collection system seems to be a

closely-knit network, centrally and top down organised by the CDC’s. Collection takes place in different

forms such as door-to-door (bell collection), block, and container collection methods. The primary waste

collection system is carried out by push carts and tricycles while secondary collection system is performed

mainly with tipper trucks (dumpers). These systems are connected at the collection points or dump yards.

Yangon has reported the operation of 946 of these yards throughout the metropolitan area.

Table 3 summarises the deployment of employees, vehicles and carts in both cities (based on a population

of 7 million in Yangon and 1.5 million in Mandalay).

employees vehicles push carts

total inhabitants per

employee

total inhabitants per

vehicle

total inhabitants per push

cart

Yangon 4.900 1.429 355 19.718 1.086 6.446

Mandalay 2.200 682 211 7.109 179 8.380

TABLE 3. WASTE EMPLOYEES, VEHICLES AND PUSH CARTS IN YANGON AND MANDALAY

The above figures show striking differences between Yangon and Mandalay. Yangon has way less

employees and vehicles taking into account its population. This goes a long way towards explaining

Mandalay’s better performance in waste management.


Informal collection by waste pickers is said to have reached quite some importance in Myanmar. The NGO

CESVI claims that already in 2013 the informal circuit of collectors and wholesalers reached a market

share of 10% of the total waste flow of Yangon (and almost 50% when related to the inert fraction alone).

These figures may be “too good to be true” as this would mean that already the majority of plastics finds

its way in the recycling market. An educated guess, based on international experience but also on our

observations in both cities, may go no further than 1% or 2%.

Nevertheless the importance of this informal sector must not be underestimated. It already provides an

income to thousands of families in Myanmar. At a small waste transfer station in Mandalay, a group of

MCDC staff making 3,600 MMK/day was working together with some waste pickers sorting out the

recyclables of the delivered waste piles. The waste pickers made around 10,000 MMK each a day. At the

end of the month they shared some of their income with the MCDC staff.

Obviously, there is some money to be made in recycling in Myanmar. And the future outlook may even be

brighter as this informal sector has the potential to become an important element of the future backbone of

Myanmar’s recycling industry.

3.3.2 Transfer sites

Transfer sites are defined as facilities that allow transferring and bulking of waste, collected in dedicated

collection vehicles of up to 8 tons, into large bulk volume trucks, carrying over 30 tons, taking their

freights to the dumpsites. Transfer stations can be very beneficial, especially under Yangon circumstances

considering the city’s geography, size and traffic problems.

Neither Yangon nor Mandalay makes use of such large size transfer stations. There are quite a number of

road side facilities (collection points) where waste from tricycles and other small capacity collection

vehicles is bulked and moved into larger containers and collection trucks of up to eight tons. At most of

these facilities labour intensive transfer and compaction operations were observed; all inadequate,

inefficient and dangerous for the workers involved. At some of the facilities on-site separation of plastics

and paper was performed by informal workers.


YCDC waste dump truck in Yangon HEIL waste compactor truck in Yangon

Hyundai truck at Htain Bin dumpsite Yangon Chinese Chenglong truck at Htain Bin

Forland truck at DOWA in SEZ Yangon Chinese SKAT truck in Meiktila (US$ 15,000)

MCDC Side loader (Mandalay) Chinese DFAC hook lift trailer in Mandalay

FIGURE 1. WASTE COLLECTION VEHICLES IN YANGON, MEIKTILA AND MANDALAY


Box 3. The key role of transfer stations

The primary role of transfer stations is to bring together small freights of waste coming from collection vehicles and bulk it in large volume trucks. These trucks are capable of carrying over 30 tons of waste and are able to transport this bulk freight to the landfill site in a very efficient and cost effective way. But there are many other advantages, the most important ones being:

· It leads to an immediate and substantial increase of the collection capacity at no extra cost because collection vehicles and employees are able to double or even triple their number of daily rounds.

· Transfer stations allow the temporary storage of waste in case of emergencies and during short periods like weekends. 24/7 opening hours of landfill sites are no longer required.

· Transfer stations allow flexibility as collection and transport are “disconnected”. Waste collection can be

carried out during night shifts. Vehicles can be used 24/7, for example by carrying out door-to-door collection during daytime and market waste collection during the night.

· The stations are able to serve as distribution centres, directing inert waste to landfill sites, organics to composting sites etc.

· Transfer stations will lower the required number and capacity of roadside collection points (because small collection vehicles will deliver their waste directly to the stations) and will enable more adequate operations at the remaining points. The latter can be promoted by providing these points with dedicated low-heigth containers. The manual transfer of waste from tricycles and push-carts into these containers is easy, safe and fast. Dedicated small trucks can take care of replacing the full containers with empty ones and transporting the containers from the roadside collection points to the transfer stations.

· The stations can be used as Household Waste Recycling Centres where households can leave their source separated waste.

· The stations can include recycling plants and facilities for parking and maintenance of the collection fleet.

3.3.3 Treatment facilities

The number of treatment facilities for specific types of waste is limited. The expert team was able to gather

information on (and in some cases visit) the examples below.

Waste to Energy

Interest in Waste to Energy is unusually strong in Myanmar. Most of the authorities’ representatives

mentioned WtE as at least one of the solutions in SWM they are looking for. This interest is most likely

sparked and stimulated by a number of countries and companies looking for new markets for their WtE

products and industries. Japan has made a sizable contribution to this situation by promoting WtE in

strategic studies but also by co-investing in Myanmar’s first WtE pilot plant in Yangon.

Construction of this plant in the north of Yangon is now completed and the plant is under commissioning.

The investments amounted to US$16 million. Half of this amount was financed by YCDC and the other

half by Japan. Engineering, construction and commissioning are carried out by the Japanese firm JFE

(http://www.jfe-eng.co.jp/en/). This pilot facility has a capacity of 60 tonnes of municipal waste per day,

mainly from the townships of Insein, Shwe Pyi Thar, North Okkalar and Mingalardon. The electricity

production capacity is 700 kW. 300 kW of this is being used for internal consumption of the plant. The

remaining 400 kW is fed into the grid.


Both from a waste treatment perspective and from an electricity production perspective, this pilot WtE

plant is considered very expensive and will need gate fees on the waste side way beyond Yangon’s

capacity. Apart from that YCDC and the plant will be faced by serious challenges with regard to feeding

into an unstable electricity grid and by years of dependency on Japan’s input on operating and maintaining

this high-technology facility.

Hospital waste

Not far from the largest dumpsite of Myanmar, in Htainbin at the northwest side of Yangon, there is a

large cemetery and cremation facility. Part of the cremation capacity at this site is used to incinerate

hospital waste (human remains). Other types of hospital waste such as discarded medicines and

instruments are buried just outside the cremation facility in a concrete bunker. Mandalay applies open pit

burning to this type of waste.

In general the impression is that the authorities in Yangon and Mandalay are well aware of the hazardous

nature of hospital waste and try to manage it as best they can through regular and separate collection and

treatment schemes.

3.3.4 Recycling

There is a sizable reuse and recycling chain in Myanmar. According to some sources, the origins of this

situation lie in the fact that Myanmar has been isolated for decades. For a number of materials such as

paper and plastics, the country had to be self-sustainable to the extend possible, which created a market for

reused products (including repair shops) and recycled materials. This sector was and is heavily dependent

on informal workers and low wages. Now that Myanmar is opening up, recycled materials are in some

cases replaced by virgin materials. The business model for recycling is therefore changing rapidly and the

sector may have to undergo a modernization and professionalization in order to stay competitive.


Plastics recycling

The issue of plastic litter is receiving increasing attention in Myanmar,

both from the public and from the private sectors. In 2009, authorities in

Mandalay banned the use of plastic bags and in April 2011 Yangon

followed suit. At some point along the road the Expert Team stumbled

upon a sign ‘Plastic Bag Free Zone’. This was considered encouraging, especially because a road sign

‘End of Plastic Bag Free Zone’ was never encountered.

Box 4. A supermarket chain trying to get rid of plastic bags

City Mart is Myanmar’s leading supermarket chain with 28 stores. As part

of their environmental responsibility, in 2013 the company started the “No

Plastic Bag Day” campaign. NPBD takes place on two fixed days every

month. On these days City Mart does not hand out plastic bags. Instead, the

company encourages its customers to bring their own reusable bags. They

also can purchase City Mart’s reusable bags. Regular plastic bags are still

available, however, on No Plastic Bag Day they cost 100 MMK (EUR 0.07) each. All sales revenues of

the reusable bags and plastic bags go to the Forest Resource Environment Development and

Conservation Association (FREDA). According to the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business

(MCRB), City Mart is the country’s frontrunner in terms of Corporate Social Responsibility.

Contact: Mr. Hninn Lae Wai, email: [email protected].

Plastics recycling is starting to become a regular industry inside Myanmar. Yangon houses three larger

plastic factories and various small factories. The estimated production of chopped plastic bottles is 1.000

tons per month. Mandalay shows a similar situation with an estimated production of 700 tons per month.

Box 5. Mount Zwegabin Plastic Free Zone

Hpa An is the capital of the Kayin State: a picturesque town on the eastern bank

of the Salween river, about 270 kms east of Yangon. One of the main attractions

in this area is the sacred and monolithic Mount Zwegabin, which is 700 mts high.

During the annual Tabaung festival, approximately 100,000 people visit this

mountain every day, leaving a humongous amount of trash. For the March 2016

edition of the festival, Kayin based Mrs. Sophia Naing launched the "Zwegabin

Plastic Free Zone" initiative (with support of a Swiss company and Coca Cola).

On the last day of the festival, about 350 volunteers from various organisations plus residents from 20

villages cleaned up the plastic rubbish left by visitors. The collected plastic items were then handed

over to the Hpa-an municipal authorities.

Contact: Mrs. Sophia Naing (photo), Peace Nexus Foundation Myanmar, +95 9 401546605,

[email protected].


Waste sorting at roadside transfer station Sorting out recyclables at

community transfer station

Harvesting recyclables at dumpsite Processing plastic waste near Mawlamyine1

Processing recyclables at DOWA site in Yangon Chu Chu shop with articles made out of

recycled plastic in Yangon

Pilot Waste to Energy plant in Yangon Recyclables ready for export in Mandalay

FIGURE 2. IMAGES OF THE RECYCLING CHAIN IN MYANMAR

1 Formerly Moulmein, the sixth largest city of Myanmar, 300 kms south east of Yangon.


A visit to one of Yangon’s industrial areas showed considerable private activities in wholesale and trading

of bulked plastic waste to foreign countries such as China. Another interesting initiative was the so called

“Chu chu store” in Yangon’s suburb of Dala. "Chu chu" in Myanmarese means "small plastig bag". As a

result of a project by the Italian NGO CESVI, a business has been set up where 30 people (mostly women)

working from their home manufacture products such as handbags from discarded plastics. The plastics

(e.g. wrappings) are collected from markets by the women themselves, so they are relatively clean. Sales at

the "Chu chu store" in Yangon's suburb Dala currently amount to US$ 5,000-6,000 per month.

In spite of these initiatives, it is safe to conclude that the country still has a long way to go before plastics

collection and recycling will reach a scale with sufficient impact on waste reduction.

Cement industry

Myanmar’s cement industry, most of it located around Mandalay, could play an important role in

Myanmar’s future waste treatment infrastructure. Considering the country’s interest in WtE-concepts it is

strange to see that this interest is virtually bypassing the opportunities offered by the cement industry.

Paper industry

Information on Myanmar’s paper and pulp industry is hard to find. One of the larger pulpers in the country

appears to be the Thabaung plant in the Ayeyarwady region west of Yangon. Data on consumption of

waste paper in this production facility are not available. Nevertheless it is safe to assume that there is a

good potential in recycling waste paper inside the country.

3.4 Waste disposal

Myanmar’s disposal infrastructure primarily consists of open dumpsites with almost no measures to

prevent the entrance of citizens, to avoid nuisance and fires and to prevent or contain leachate, dust and

landfill gas emissions. Operations on the Mandalay and Yangon dumpsites are pretty much limited to the

registration of incoming waste volumes. Spatial planning and landscaping are not applied. Heavy

equipment (bulldozers, compactors, dumpers) is almost absent, making it impossible to pile up waste in

thick layers, to construct temporary roads for collection trucks and to perform daily coverage of the waste

with a layer of soil. In most cases, the result is a thin pancake of waste, no more than four to six meters

high, covering large stretches of land, openly exposed to wind, sun and rain and open for uncontrolled

entrance by scavengers.

Apart from the above shortcomings the dumpsites look relatively well organized. The sites are well

embedded in the CDC organisations, the waste input is registered and even the scavengers are registered in

the sites’ administration.

The tables and maps below provide an overview of currently operational dumpsites in both cities.


Waste dumpsites Yangon Waste dumpsites Mandalay

Dumpsites Yangon Area

(ha)

Used

(ha)

Disposal

(ton/day)

Dumpsites

Mandalay

Area

(ha)

Used

(ha)

Disposal

(ton/day)

Htain Bin 61 28 1,111 Kyar ni Kan 5 2 450

Htawe Chaung 60 20 945 Thaung Inn Mount 12 4 300

Da La 0.5 350

Seikkyi Khanaung To 0.1 7

Mingalardon 0.4 70

Shwe Pyi Tar 0.4 70

The Htain Bin and Htwei Chaung dumpsites in Yangon will remain open in the upcoming years. Both sites

have a substantial remaining capacity (see Box 6).

YCDC, with the aid of JICA, has already selected nine new sites around Yangon, which are to replace

Htain Bin and Htwei Chaung in the future. This strategy is however considered costly (land prices are

high) and unnecessary. As described, there will be no need for replacement as the present capacity will be

more than sufficient in the case of optimised operations.

Although at a smaller scale, the same conclusion holds for the two Mandalay dumpsites.

A properly designed landfill was encountered in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone. The Japanese

private firm DOWA (in Myanmar: Golden DOWA Eco System) invested US$ 36 million in this facility.

Apart from on-site waste disposal the company provides transportation, pre-treatment and recycling of

waste. Clients include the companies at the Thilawa SEZ but also domestic and industrial facilities

elsewhere. DOWA's 500,000 m3 landfill (capacity for 40-50 years) has been designed according to

international standards for the disposal of hazardous waste (US EPA). Before disposal the waste is

stabilized. There is also an on-site waste water treatment plant with a biological and coagulating

sedimentation process. Currently the plant is processing 100 tons of waste per month. The DOWA waste

processing facility is not cheap: a bottle filling company in the SEZ pays more than US$ 500 per ton to get

its waste processed there. YCDC is cheaper but the company chose DOWA because of its proximity.

Contact: Mr. Kei Nagata, Golden DOWA Eco-System Myanmar, [email protected].


Pile of waste next to restaurant Waste pool next to food items at market

Pile of waste next to an outdoor market Weighing station at Mandalay waste dump

“Pancake disposal” at Meiktila dump site Waste pickers at Mandalay dumpsite

Concrete storage of hospital waste Yangon Modern landfill at DOWA site on SEZ Yangon

FIGURE 3. IMAGES OF WASTE DISPOSAL IN THE STREETS AND AT DUMP SITES IN MYANMAR


Box 6. Opportunity: Raising the life expectancy of Yangon’s landfills

Yangon’s two main landfills Htain Bin and Htwei Chaung are occupying a combined area of 120

hectares of which around 50 hectares are covered with an average five meters of waste. If the entire area

of these two sites would be used to landfill up to an average of 40 meters this would yield a remaining

capacity of almost 40 mln m3. That would be enough for Yangon’s waste production in the coming 15

years. Pre-treating the incoming waste by simple and cheap separation/composting/stabilisation and

using the compost for the daily coverage of the waste, would reduce the volume to be landfilled by at

least 60%. This would result in a remaining life expectancy of the two sites of 30 to 40 years and would

also provide the critical mass needed for investments in leachate and landfill gas catchment and

treatment systems.

3.5 Costs, fees and affordability

3.5.1. Current costs and fees

The current costs of the waste collection and treatment systems in Myanmar can only be estimated on a

rough basis.

City cleaning is carried out by street sweepers earning an average of 3,600 MMK per day, or EUR 60 per

month. Assuming Yangon presently employs 1,000 street sweepers, this leads to a cost per household of

EUR 0.30 per month.

Table 4 below provides an estimate of how high the collection costs would be based on collection in an

eight ton truck with five workers, working 20 days a month and with the capacity to make two collection

rounds in one day (considering distance and traffic jams). This estimation would lead to overall collection

costs of no more than EUR 1.50 per household per month. The result of course is heavily dependent on the

number of rounds that can be made in one day. An average of two rounds may be accurate under Yangon

circumstances. For Mandalay it will be more like three to four rounds. In general it can be stated that

doubling the number of rounds will lead to cutting the costs in half, which is in fact the result that can be

achieved by operating a network of transfer stations.

In the current situation, an average of three rounds per day and collection coverage rate of 50% lead to

average costs per household of no more than EUR 0.50 per month.


Cost factor per waste truck # Salary per employee (EUR/month) Costs

(EUR/day)

Driver 1 120 6

Assistant 1 100 5

Loaders 3 80 12

Salaries total (EUR/day) 23

Depreciation, maintenance, insurance, interest of vehicles (EUR/day)

175

Diesel (EUR/day) based on 5 ltrs/hr, 10hrs/day, EUR 0.5 per ltr 25

Total costs (EUR/day) 223

Costs per ton (EUR/ton) based on 8 tons/truck, 2 rounds per day 13.94

Costs per household (EUR/month) based on 4.4 members/household with 0.8 kg/pppd 1.48

TABLE 4. COST OF WASTE COLLECTION MODEL IN YANGON (100% SERVICE COVERAGE)

The costs of dumping under todays’ Myanmar circumstances must be extremely low considering the

limited number of staff and equipment employed on these sites. Is seems safe to assume that these costs

are no higher than EUR 0.05 per household per month.

The overall costs of the current inadequate system of city cleaning, waste collection and treatment

(administration/management included) in Yangon will be no higher than EUR 1.00 per household per

month or EUR 20 million per year. For Mandalay (with shorter transport distances and a higher collection

coverage) the figure will be more or less the same, leading to yearly costs of approximately EUR 4 million.

Current monthly fees in Yangon and Mandalay are summarised in table 5 (expressed in Myanmar Kyats.

Not included in this table: both cities also provide on-call services with payments per trip).

households commercial hospitals

Range Min - Max Min - Max Min - Max

Yangon 300 - 6002 500 – 550,000 1,500 – 300,000

Mandalay 300 - 900 11.000/ton No data

TABLE 5. CURRENT MONTHLY WASTE FEES IN YANGON AND MANDALAY (IN MMK)

Data on the effectiveness of fee collection (which % of households is actually paying?) are not available.

As EUR 1.00 equals approximately MMK 1,400, the above figures lead to the conclusion for Yangon that

2 Central area 600 MMK/month; suburban areas 450 MMK/month; centralized townships: 300 MMK/month.


present revenues do not cover present costs. Similarly, Mandalay’s fee system appears not to cover the

total costs of the current services. In fact, according to the MCDC, only one eighth of the costs of waste

management is currently covered directly through the waste fees.

3.5.2. Costs and fees for adequate facilities and operations

For proper city cleaning the service needs to be improved substantially. Deployment of more workers,

proper operations and improved equipment will lead to costs running up to EUR 1 per household per

month. A system for collection and transport, making use of transfer stations and proper equipment, is

expected to cost no more than EUR1 per household per month as well. Upgrading the dumpsites into basic

but adequate landfills will cost no more than EUR 0.50 per household per month. The combined cost of a

functional and well performing SWM backbone in Yangon and Mandalay is therefore estimated to be no

more than EUR 2.50 per household per month.

3.5.3. Affordability

The minimum wage in Myanmar is MMK 3600 per day, a little more than EUR 2,50. Assuming a

minimum and average household income of EUR 80 and EUR 220 per month respectively this means that

adequate SWM services would be affordable to the average family in Myanmar (costing about 1% of their

income) but may be too expensive for the poor (3%). In order to accommodate this a system of fee

differentiation is recommended.


4. Waste policies, laws and regulations

In most countries, the system of environmental laws and regulations is a top-down structure, where

municipal rules are formulated within the framework of national and (possibly) provincial legislation (in

the Netherlands, the EU legislation and goals are the starting point). In the case of Myanmar, however,

there appears to be hardly a connection between national and municipal rules on waste management.

National rules are generally vague and not specifically designed for waste management, so it is up to the

cities and townships to define their own environmental rules and strategies. For the big cities this appears

to work out satisfactorily at the moment, but small cities (not the subject of this study) undoubtedly lack

the expertise to properly plan and execute their waste management operations. In the future, when waste

management will be dealt with at a supra-municipal level and concepts such as Extended Producer’s

Responsibility get introduced in Myanmar, a well developed national framework specifically for waste

management will be indispensable.

4.1 National legislative framework

Year / Law Remarks

1994: Myanmar National Environmental Policy

Environmental regulations on the utilization, conservation, and prevention of environmental degradation including water, land, forest, mineral, marine resources, and other natural resources

1997: National Agenda 21

Implemention of integrated management of natural resources providing a blueprint for achieving specific targets on environmentally sustainable development

2009: National Sustainable Development Strategy

To ensure development remains in harmony with the three main pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental and social objectives

2012: National Environmental Conservation Law

An enforcement mechanism to protect and conserve nature. This law prescribes the requirements for Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and Environmental Management Plans (EMP) for e.g. investment projects.

2014: Environmental Conservation Rules

TABLE 6. LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR THE WASTE SECTOR AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL

Table 6 shows the Myanmar laws and regulations applicable to the waste sector. The regulations are still of

a very general nature. The Union Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation

(MoNREC) together with the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies in Japan has recently

formulated a waste management strategy at the national level as well as for Yangon, Mandalay and

Naypyidaw. Unfortunately, the resulting policy document has turned out to be vague, without a true

strategy on how to achieve the set targets and a proper assignment of responsibilities.

4.2 Local level

As stated in the introduction, waste management related policies and their implementation are

predominantly taken up on a local level through the municipalities. The so called City and Township

Development Committees (CDC’s) take up waste management as a principal responsability. In particular,

the CDC’s of Yangon, Mandalay and Naypyidaw (YCDC, MCDC and NCDC) have a strong role and


certain policy making responsibilities due to the significance of these urban centers. The CDC’s in the

cities have a Pollution Control and Cleansing Department (PCCD) in charge of household solid waste,

industrial and hazardous waste management. They also have a Department of Water and Sanitation with

responsibility for wastewater and sewerage waste management. Other departments within the Township

Development Committees (e.g. City Planning) equally have a role in handling of waste related matters.

Staff at the PCCD Yangon; left to right at the table: Daw Khin Hnin Aye, Assistant Engineer; U Saw Win Maung, Deputy Head of Department; Dr. Aung Myint Maw, Deputy Head of Department and Assistant Chief Engineer; and (separately to the right) Lt. Col Cho Tun Aung , Head of Department

4.3 Example: The Concept Waste Master Plan for Yangon 2040

With the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Yangon is working on a draft Master

Plan for Waste Management. It has a technical component and a soft component. Table 7 shows the

outline of the plan in the short, medium and long term.

Technical component Soft component

Short term · Site selection of Yangon eastern and southern

dump sites

· Site selection of western transfer station

· Budget allocation for Yangon Waste to Energy

development

· Capacity building of PCCD

Medium term · Master plan on SWM

· Recycling center / Composting plant

· Citizen’s awareness campaign

· Capacity building

· Privatization of SWM services

· Legislation establishment

· Budget allocation

Long term · Waste to Energy

· Integrated collection system

· Workshop improvement

· Expansion of Yangon

· Citizen's awareness campaign

· Capacity building

· Privatization of SWM services

· (Establishment of Waste Authority)

· Budget allocation

TABLE 7. CONCEPT MASTER PLAN OF THE PCCD YANGON MARCH 2017

This plan will have to help Yangon to deal with the effects of future population growth, population density

growth and an increase in the waste per capita. There is also an increasing land scarcity problem (and high

land prices), so the choice to develop new dump sites may not be the best option. Extending the life span

of the current locations is much cheaper. Another way to optimize the use of financial resources will be to

upgrade the overall waste system (including recycling, composting etc) rather than betting on expensive

waste to energy plants.


4. Private sector opportunities

4.1 Waste related private sector in Myanmar

4.1.1 Myanmar companies

The private sector in Myanmar related to waste management is as yet of modest proportions. Below a list

of useful contacts is provided; some already working in the waste management field, others working in

adjacent areas but with the potential to become useful business partners for Dutch waste related

companies. Although companies in waste (water) management can be 100% foreign owned in Myanmar, a

reliable local business partner is considered very important to successfully operate in the country.

Environmental Quality Management Co

EQM is a professional services company specializing in environmental, social and health impact

assessments (ESHIA). The company has worked with the Ministry of Natural Resources and

Conservation (MoNREC) and IGES Japan on a waste management strategy for Myanmar and its

main cities. It is also currently involved in an inventory of hazardous waste in Myanmar on the

basis of a questionnaire (a project supported by Norway).

Contact: Mrs. Ohnmar May Tin Hlaing, Director, +95 1 2333994, [email protected],

www.eqm-myanmar.com

Zeya & Associates

Family owned business, part of the RGK+Z&A Group. With its approx. 300 staff it is a leading

engineering, procurement and construction services company in Myanmar. Zeya works for the

Government (incl. PPP arrangements) and for private clients. In 2013 the company won a

YCDC tender to build a 600 tons/day Waste-to-Energy facility in Yangon. Eventually it was not

built because the gate fees turned out to be insufficient and the necessary power tariff was

considered too high by the authorities.

Contact: Mr. Sabarinathan Ravichandran, Associates Director, +95 9 5034252,

[email protected], www.rgkzna.com.

SMART Group of Companies

Since 1994, SMART Group of Companies is an important technical services provider in

Myanmar for customers from the oil and gas, marine and offshore, engineering and other

industries. Its Director U Kyaw Kyaw Hlaing worked for Schlumberger Technical Services as

Field Engineer/Data Services Manager from 1981 to 1994 in Myanmar and abroad. He now is

involved in environmental activities including a video awareness program entitled “Stop Using

Plastic Bags”.

Contact: U Kyaw Kyaw Hlaing, Director, Tel. +95 1 441189, http://smartmyanmargroup.com

Back in 2014/2015, the YCDC made an attempt to outsource waste collection services in Yangon to the

private sector. The companies that were competing for this concession were Shwe Myan Star (Myanmar),

Advance Technology International, Zeya & Associates (Myanmar), AOSORA, TYTC Waste Equipment

(Australia), Future Unodex (Myanmar) and Kyaw Htet Kyaw (Myanmar). The concession was never

awarded though.

Table 8 provides some additional contacts in fields adjacent to waste management.


Name company Activities Website

AMD Trading Ltd Portable waste water treatment systems www.amdmyanmar.com

ARCADIS Built asset design and consultancy, incl. water treatment www.arcadis.com

CAG Engineering Building automation, incl. WWTPs. Planning to organize a seminar on waste

http://www.cagengineering.com/

CEA Project Logistics Logistics services. The manager John L. Hamilton has worked in waste in Hong Kong / Thailand

http://ceaprojects.com/

Energize Myanmar Development of private power plants. May be a useful contact for WtE projects in the future

www.energizemyanmar.com

Environmental Myanmar Cooperative Co., Ltd

Environmental consulting, incl. EIAs http://emc-myanmar.org

Myanmar International Consultants

Consulting in public infrastructure, including energy and water. No specific waste projects yet

http://mmicltd.com

Royal HaskoningDHV Engineering and consultancy in infrastructure incl. water www.royalhaskoningdhv.com

Safege (SUEZ Myanmar) Improving water management plus studies to improve public services in Mandalay (incl. waste management)

http://www.safege.com/en

Supreme Group of Companies

Turnkey water installations and WWTPs http://supremegroupcompanies.com/

Wa Minn Group of companies

Project developer, also WWTPs (Kubota Johkasou system)

http://www.waminn.com/

TABLE 8. SOME ADDITIONAL ENVIRONMENT RELATED COMPANIES IN MYANMAR

Danish Ramboll and Australian SMEC are also active in Myanmar.

International cooperation is still an important factor in Myanmar, and may even be picking up as a result of

the opening up of the country. Table 9 provides an overview of the countries and NGO’s which are

currently active in the country in waste management and associated issues.

NGO Activities Contact

CESVI Institutional capacity building in Yangon, mapping waste streams with GIS tech, awareness raising. Notable result: 30 people making products from discarded plastic and selling them through “Chu Chu” store in Dala

Mr. Friedor Jeske Governance Sector Coordinator +95 9 254 049 065 [email protected]

DFID UK Working on cities and infrastructures for growth, would be interested to cooperate on waste management

Mrs. Kirstyn Thomson / DFID Myanmar +95 9 250534039 [email protected]

GRET Carried out a data collection on waste management in Yangon, Mandalay and Monywa for UN Habitat. Plans to organize a one day seminar on waste management in October 2017 for some 150 participants

Mr. Thibaut Le L'Och GRET Myanmar +95 9 452102989 [email protected]

Norway Making an inventory of the generation of hazardous waste in Myanmar with support of the company EQM

Mr. Einar Rystad, Norway Embassy +95 (1) 513459, [email protected]

UNIDO Plans to establish the Resource Efficient and Cleaner Production (RECP) programme (mainly waste prevention, funded by Switzerland)

Mr. Michele Boario, CTA Myanmar +95 9 420118981 [email protected]

TABLE 9. NGO’S CURRENTLY WORKING ON WASTE MANAGEMENT IN MYANMAR


The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has waste management activities in Myanmar

under the Mandalay Urban Services Improvement Project (ongoing) and the Third

Greater Mekong Subregion Corridor Towns Development Project (planned). Details of

these projects are uploaded and bidding documents for procurement packages will be

advertised on the ADB website (www.adb.org).

Contact: Ms. Eri Honda, Urban Development Specialist, Asian Development Bank, +63 2 632 5464/6891,

[email protected].

The World Bank has a dedicated website on Myanmar: www.worldbank.org/en/country/myanmar. The

European Investment Bank (EIB, www.eib.org) can finance capital investments related to projects on

climate change mitigation, sanitation infrastructure and local private sector development. EIB is currently

not involved in waste-related activities in Myanmar.

4.1.2 Myanmar (sectoral) trade support organizations

For Dutch companies wishing to become active in Myanmar, the Dutch Embassy is the first recommended

port of call. It is a relatively new Embassy. It (re-)opened in October 2016 after almost 50 years of

absence. The Embassy has a dual focus of supporting the development of the country and promoting

business ties between the Dutch and Myanmar private sectors. One of the thematic focus areas of the

Dutch Embassy is water management. The efforts in waste management originate from this focus, as it was

observed that the waste situation is having a very tangible impact on Myanmar's water problems, e.g.

because the overwhelming amount of litter is clogging up waterways.

The Dutch Embassy is located at No. 43/c Inya Myaing Road, Shwe Taung Kyar 2 Ward, Bahan, Yangon.

The seat of the Myanmar Government nowadays is Naypyidaw, 320 kms to the north. For the foreseeable

future the Embassy will stay in the business hub Yangon, but the day may come that it will have to move

to Naypyidaw.

The Dutch trade support team in the Yangon Embassy is depicted below. The general email address of the

Royal Dutch Embassy in Yangon is [email protected].

Mr. Wouter Jurgens Ambassador Tel. +95 9 455 31 1135 Email: [email protected]

Miss Carola Baller Counsellor for Trade and Development Tel. +95 1 2306046 Email: [email protected]

Miss Sandar Myint Senior Economic and Commercial Officer Tel. +95 1 2306047 Mobile: +95 95112849 Email: [email protected]


Apart from the Dutch Embassy, a number of (sectoral) trade support organizations can be very useful in

finding ones way in the business environment in Myanmar.

Eurocham

Launched in Dec 2014, the European Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar represents the

interests of European business in the country. In July 2013, Myanmar was reinstated as a

beneficiary of the “Everything But Arms” initiative under the Generalised Scheme of

Preferences (GSP). This allows Myanmar companies to enjoy duty-free and quota-free access to

the EU market. EuroCham offers assistance to European businesses interested in commercial

endeavors in Myanmar, in the form of advocacy, services, studies, or other related activities.

Eurocham is led by Dutch national Filip Lauwerysen.

Contact: Filip Lauwerysen, Executive Director, 95 9 45058 2335, director@eurocham-

myanmar.org

Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry

The UMFCCI is the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Myanmar. Founded in

1919, UMFCCI comprises 16 regional and state Chambers of Commerce and Industry, nine

border trade associations, 48 affiliated associations and about 30,000 members. Apart from

representing the Myanmar private sector in its dealings with the Myanmar Government,

UMFCCI organizes trade promotion events with foreign companies.

Contact: U Zaw Min Win, President, [email protected], www.umfcci.com.mm

Myanmar Engineering Society (MES)

The Myanmar Engineering Society was formed in 1995. It has 35,000 individual and corporate

members in 20 branches countrywide. Half of the members are students. MES provides training

in engineering courses including on environmental issues. Through its Environmental

Committee the MES could mobilize participants in training courses on waste managemment,

including staff members of City Development Committees. Another way to disseminate

environmental information is through its quarterly publication "Tech Digest".

Contact: Mr. U Aung Myint, President, [email protected], +95 92051063,

https://www.facebook.com/myanmarengineeringsociety/

Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA)

As part of its efforts to establish a market oriented economic system in Myanmar, DICA was

formed under the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development in 1993. Apart

from being Myanmar’s investment promotion agency, DICA registers companies and acts as a

regulator on investment and business. For Dutch companies wishing to do business in

Myanmar, DICA can provide a lot of information.

Contact: Mr. San Myint, Deputy Director General, [email protected], Tel. +95 9

49205935, www.dica.gov.mm

4.2 Dutch programs applicable in Myanmar

At this point, opportunities for Dutch waste related companies in Myanmar will oftentimes be related to

(policy) advice or otherwise strengthening of the public sector. For such services it is important to know

the Dutch set of instruments to promote cooperation and business with Myanmar. Table 10 on the next

page provides an overview. Most of the instruments are administered by the Netherlands Enterprise

Agency (RVO). More information on RVO’s programs can be found at http://english.rvo.nl/.


Instrument Description

Matchmaking facility

Development of the local private sector by establishing long-term business relationships (investments, trade, transfer of expertise) between local and Dutch companies through tailor-made matchmaking. Myanmar SMEs with a solid financial base, at least 10 employees, and which are registered for at least two years are eligible for participation.

Netherlands Fellowship Programmes

The Netherlands Fellowship Programs (NFP) promote capacity building within organizations by providing fellowships for training and education for professionals. The NFP is initiated and fully funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the budget for development cooperation. Myanmar is a priority country, meaning it will receive relatively more fellowships.

PUM Netherlands senior experts

SME's and NGO's in a.o. Myanmar can make temporary use of the experience and skills of a retired Dutch manager or expert. The experts are independent and do their work as volunteers. In other words, they do not receive a fee for their services. The country coordinator for PUM in Myanmar is Mr. John de Bruijn, [email protected].

FDW Sustainable Water Fund

Through the Sustainable Water Fund the Netherlands promotes public-private partnerships in the water sector in developing countries such as Myanmar. The goal is to improve water safety and availability. Waste related projects are welcome in case they contribute to water safety. In view of the fact that in Myanmar the problems of water and waste management are intricately related (see also Box 1), finding waste related FDW projects with a positive effect on water safety will be relatively easy. Typical subsidy amounts per project range from 0.5 to 3 million euros. The next deadline for concept notes is December 8th, 2017.

Develop 2 Build / DRIVE

With DRIVE the Netherlands facilitates investments in infrastructural projects that contribute to a good business climate and entrepreneurship in the area of water, climate, food security and sexual and reproductive health (SRHR). Waste related projects may qualify if they contribute to the goals. Through (45%) DRIVE support Dutch companies can come up with a more competitive offer in infrastructural tenders. Develop 2 Build supports preparatory studies for DRIVE or otherwise funded projects.

DHI Program The DHI scheme supports Dutch enterprises wishing to invest in or execute a project in emerging markets and in developing countries such as Myanmar. There are three modules: 1/ Demonstration projects: presentation of a technology, capital goods or service in one of the DHI countries; 2/ Feasibility studies: assessment of the profitability of a foreign investment in a product or service; and 3/ Investment preparation studies: assessment of the technical and commercial profitability of an investment in a company in one of the DHI countries. Currently the DHI program is closed.

Private Sector Development (PSD) support

PSD Instruments of the Dutch Embassy in Myanmar consist of several tools which add to local capacity building and simultaneously support Dutch organizations and companies in doing business in Myanmar. These instruments can be used to contribute to local development and to support investments of Dutch companies. Matchmaking, government to government assistance, training of managers and entrepreneurs, trade missions from and to Myanmar, transfer of knowledge between educational or knowledge institutes such as universities are some examples of those initiatives.

Dutch Good Growth Fund

The Dutch Good Growth Fund provides customised finance to Dutch and foreign SMEs (doing business) in developing countries and emerging markets. The DGGF supplements private investments through guarantees and direct financing with a repayment obligation, such as loans and equity investments in projects. It can also provide export credit insurance and export financing.

Partners for International Business / Impact Cluster

The PIB program is meant to create long-term positioning of Dutch companies in promising markets. The goal is to remove trade barriers and knowledge gaps, economic diplomacy and to promote industry. A PIB program needs a consortium of at least five companies and/or knowledge institutes. For Myanmar a PIB program may be a bridge too far. A so called "Impact Cluster" approach, with more emphasis on the public sector, may be more appropriate at this stage.

TABLE 10. DUTCH POLICY INSTRUMENTS APPLICABLE IN MYANMAR


4.3 Quick wins in waste and business opportunities

In the view of the Expert Team, business opportunities in the waste sector in Myanmar tend to be closely

related to the “quick wins” outlined in table 11.

Quick win Remarks

Put Waste to Energy on hold WtE is currently not profitable in Myanmar compared to other options

Focus on capacity building Start with basics in city cleaning and solid waste management for current and future staff in waste management

Use the full potential of dumpsites

Remediation, upgrading and expansion of current dumpsites is way cheaper than developing new ones

Improve fee collection The goal should be a self-sustaining system in the long run. Improved fee collection should go hand in hand with better infrastructure and awareness

Develop transfer stations Optimized waste logistics in the big cities including transfer stations reduces costs

Involve the cement industry The cement industry could possibly incinerate part of the waste (esp. Mandalay)

Support the recycling industry Build on / professionalize the current informal recycling sector

TABLE 11. QUICK WINS FOR THE WASTE SECTOR IN MYANMAR

Table 12 provides an overview of current business opportunities and an estimation of opportunities that

may arise in the medium and long term in Myanmar.

Horizon Business opportunities

Short term

· Consultancy assigments in Overseas Development Assistance projects

· Consultancy support in conversion of waste dump sites into controlled disposal sites

· Basic (and/or second hand) waste collection and transport equipment (vehicles, containers)

· (Engineering services for) Waste transfer stations

· Basic waste separation and sorting installations

· Consultancy support for basic composting

· Waste treatment installations in PPP structures

Medium term

· Equipment for recycling

· Installations to produce RDF as a fuel for cement kilns

· Equipment for treatment of special kinds of waste such as hospital waste, C&D waste etc

Long term

· Suppliers of equipment related to EPR systems

· Waste administration software

TABLE 12. WASTE RELATED BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES IN MYANMAR

For a first impression of whether a business idea in waste management could be profitable in Myanmar,

the list below provides some key indicators.

· Household electricity price 0.04 - 0.08 EUR/kWhr

· Industry electricity price 0.2 - 0.3 EUR/kWhr (when a back-up generator is used due to frequent

blackouts)

· Gas price (households / industry): 0.59 EUR/m3


· Minimum salary 75 EUR/month

· Import taxes 0%-40% (depending on the value of the imported goods)

· Revenue tax: 25%

International competition can be expected especially from China and Japan, although equipment from

other countries is present as well. Interestingly, Japan and China appear to follow contradictory market

entry strategies in Myanmar. Japanese firms such as DOWA and Mitsubishi are implementing high end

installations for recycling and for waste incineration. These are currently expensive and not profitable but

may serve as promotional tools for Japanese expertise and products in the long run. On the other hand,

Chinese firms are entering the market with low cost equipment, such as the new waste collection vehicles

in Meiktila at a cost of around US$ 15,000. Not surprisingly, in the waste sector in Myanmar China is

earning itself a reputation of affordability but not of quality and reliability.


5. SWOT overview

In table 13 an overview is provided of the current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats related

to the waste management system in Myanmar.

Strengths Weaknesses

· Myanmar enjoys strong economic growth

· Waste management is centralized in the hands of the City Development Committees

· Relatively well developed and diverse recycling sector because of the scarcity of materials during the years of isolation

· End users are available for recycled materials such as RDF (Mandalay cement industry), paper, plastics and metals

· Myanmar's democracy is still in its infancy

· Ethnic unrest and warlord activity remain in border areas

· Weak national legislative and policy framework regarding waste, no connection with local implementation

· Unreliable data on the waste sector

· Deplorable litter situation to the point that it clogs up water ways

· Incipient private sector in waste management

Opportunities Threats

· Myanmar's awakening after decades of isolation is a good moment to become active in the country

· The country’s leader Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi is well aware of the waste problem and motivated to take action (see Box 7)

· A combined water and waste program could help solve two problems in one go

· To develop a proper SWM system is affordable in the big cities

· Bilateral and multilateral organizations are getting interested in investing in waste management

· Quick wins can jumpstart improvements in waste management

· Widespread view in Myanmar that Waste-to-Energy is a viable option

· Widespread lack of citizen's awareness on the importance of proper waste management

· International competition, especially from Japan and China

TABLE 13. SWOT OVERVIEW WASTE MANAGEMENT IN MYANMAR

Box 7: A powerful ally: Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi

On December 13th 2015, after her historic election victory the

month before, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi took to the streets in

Kawhmu township on the outskirts of Yangon to pick up trash.

Clutching a large white garbage bag and wearing protective gloves,

Mrs. Suu Kyi rummaged through the dirt to pick up tangles of old

plastic bags and other debris. In a statement, she stressed the

importance of keeping Myanmar clean. Garbage collection is “the

first thing we can do to serve the people", she said.


6. Conclusions and recommendations for follow-up

6.1. Conclusions

Myanmar offers a “fresh” but still immature market for providers of services, knowledge and equipment

related to waste management. Needs are still not well expressed and the buying capacity is low. The

country lacks a good level of professional knowledge and experience. National planning is virtually absent.

This leaves cities with lots of manoeuvering space but also leads to indecisiveness and differences in

strategies and policies between the cities. Foreign companies will find many challenging, greenfield

markets, not yet taken by competitors.

The country is open and susceptible to foreign advice. Sometimes too open, as illustrated by the preference

for unaffordable technologies such as waste incineration and waste-to-energy as offered by the Japanese

government and companies.

There’s only little and unreliable data on waste production and the coverage of collection and city cleaning

in the main cities Yangon and Mandalay. This being the case, there is no risk in concluding that both cities

provide an enormous economy of scale when it comes to developing proper private and public

infrastructure and services. This economy of scale can be explored to the full as most cities are still under

central metropolitan governance.

Littering is omnipresent and probably the most important shortcoming in Myanmar’s waste management.

It heavily affects the country’s and cities’ water quality and water management. Improving waste

collection will therefore only be credible and feasible when developed hand in hand with substantial

programs on city cleaning and public awareness.

Same as in many developing countries, Myanmar lacks an adequate backbone of waste management

infrastructure and services. The country should focus on:

· improving overall levels of knowledge and skills

· increasing the coverage and quality of waste collection

· introducing waste transfer stations to cope with distances and traffic jams

· remediation, upgrading and upscaling of its dumpsites

· increasing the revenues of fees and the quality of fee collection

All in all Myanmar is considered a market “in preparation”. Dutch companies and institutions may find

opportunities in specific disciplines (especially on knowhow and on equipment for city cleaning and waste

collection) but in general solid, exponential growth is not expected in the coming (three) years. For the

Netherlands as a whole the best thing to do at this moment is to participate in Myanmar’s “preparation” by

building up a good reputation and thus creating fertile ground for future trade.

6.2. Recommendations for follow-up

The Expert Team sees the following opportunities for follow-up:

1. A one week seminar on Integrated Solid Waste Management

2. A preparatory project for an upgrade of Yangon's waste management system

3. Implementation of an integral upgrade of Yangon's waste management system

4. An exploratory study into the possibility of waste incineration in cement kilns in Myanmar


Recommendations (2) and (3) are based on the so called “Holland Model”, a practical and sustainable

approach to upgrade the waste management system at (major) city level as advocated by the Expert Team

in developing countries such as Myanmar (see also Box 8).

Box 8. “Holland model” on Solid Waste Management

The Netherlands is amongst the best performing countries in the world when it comes to solid waste management (SWM). The country reaches out to cities and regions in developing countries to help them improve their practices in this field. Not by transferring high tech technology but rather by contributing to the development and maintenance of a basic and sustainable backbone of solid waste facilities, operations, services and cashflows.

The Holland Model comprises:

implementation of professional, public SWM organisations with adequate mandates, autonomy, authority and budgets

design and operation of basic sanitary landfills able to treat municipal, commercial and, if necessary, hazardous waste for many years and also able to accommodate recycling and treatment initiatives

improvement of city cleaning, collection and transport through suitable logistics and transfer stations

cost coverage by fee collection systems making use of existing collection schemes and differentiated according to household-income

additional support, if needed, on national planning, standards and guidelines and producers responsibility schemes

The Holland model aims at:

cleaner and healthier cities through practical solutions

adequate public services with 100% coverage

sustainable operations, affordable for all households

sound financial basis with 100% cost coverage paid by waste producers

investment/labour balances resulting in maximum employment

increased awareness among the population

Below the different elements of the proposed strategies are further explained.

1/ A one week seminar on Integrated Solid Waste Management

An opinion frequently expressed to the members of the Dutch Expert Team was the need for capacity

building on ISWM. At this stage of development in Myanmar, the potential impact of capacity building on

the direction which waste management will take is considered very significant. Besides, capacity building

is considered a great way to strengthen and expand the Dutch network of contacts in the waste sector in

Myanmar.

It is therefore proposed to organize a (max) one week seminar on ISWM with the following subjects (each

to be covered in one day):

· Legislation, planning and institutional framework

· Waste logistics and transfer stations

· Sustainable landfilling

· Waste recycling and valorization strategies

· Financials, fees, organisation and governance


Participants in the seminar could be staff of the City Development Committees / PCCD's of Yangon and

Mandalay plus CDC staff of the 10 or 20 next biggest cities in Myanmar, as well as additional waste sector

representatives as deemed appropriate. This seminar (content and logistics) could be organized together

with the YCDC/PCCD and with the Myanmar Association of Engineers, which has already expressed

interest.

It is important to coordinate the organization of the seminar with the NGO GRET Myanmar. GRET is also

planning to organize a seminar on waste management in the second semester of 2017. In their case a strong

emphasis will be on getting to know the needs of the participants in terms of capacity building, so the

GRET event can serve as an input to the Dutch ISWM seminar.

It is expected that the seminar can be organized in October or November 2017.

2/ A preparatory project for an upgrade of Yangon's waste management system

In the opinion of the Dutch Expert Team, there is no doubt that the Dutch practical and cooperative

approach and decades long experience can have tremendous added value in upgrading the waste

management system in Myanmar. It is recommended to implement such upgrade in the main city Yangon

for the following reasons:

1. Urgency: Waste management is a big problem in Yangon and it can grow out of control in the

coming years

2. Economy of scale: Yangon is the largest city in Myanmar with the biggest resources to invest in

proper waste management

3. Role model: Yangon is the reference city for the rest of Myanmar

The Expert team assessed the situation in Mandalay as well, but the waste is managed a little better there

and besides, the city is receiving support from Japan and the Asian Development Bank in this area.

The Expert Team proposes an overall upgrade of the waste management system in Yangon. This is

consistent with the opinion of the Mayor of Yangon Dr. Maung Maung Soe, who prefers to build on and

improve the current waste management system rather than leap-frogging to concepts such as Waste-to-

Energy. The Expert team proposes to focus on the following elements:

I. Increasing the coverage and quality of waste collection

II. Introducing a system of waste transfer stations to cope with distances and traffic jams

III. Remediation, upgrading and expansion of the Htain Bin dump site into a proper landfill

IV. Increasing the revenues of fees and the quality of fee collection

In reality, this upgrade requires a triple focus on the waste infrastructure in Yangon, the fee collection

system and the awareness on the part of the citizens. The preparatory project is meant to investigate

whether such approach is supported by the authorities and other stakeholders, especially the YCDC /

PCCD. At the same time, it will be investigated whether other actors such as financing institutions are

willing to join the project. The end result of the preparatory project should be a Memorandum of

Understanding on how to jointly develop and implement the overall upgrade.

3/ Implementation of an integral upgrade of Yangon's waste management system

In case the former step leads to a signed MoU, the preparatory studies for the overall upgrade of the waste

system in Yangon can be set in motion. The studies are expected to take a year approximately.


When all studies have been finalized satisfactorily, the implementation of the project can be set in motion.

The preferred situation is that in this phase of the project, a coalition of stakeholders and financiers has

been formed that jointly takes on the project.

4/ An exploratory study into the possibility of waste incineration in cement kilns in Myanmar

The concept of Waste-to-Energy (W2E) obviously has gained a lot of support in Myanmar as part of a

future solution to the waste problem. In the opinion of the Dutch Expert team, W2E is not a viable option

for Myanmar because it is way too expensive compared to other options. The exception may be waste

incineration in cement kilns in the vicinity of Mandalay. The Netherlands has a lot of knowledge and

experience with this kind of technology and it may be considered to carry out a feasibility study to evaluate

its applicability.

You are cordially invited to join the LinkedIn Group "

Netherlands-Myanmar cooperation and business on Solid

Waste Management" at:

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13516372


7. Sources

· Doh Eain Renewing Yangon (2016), “The Alley Garden Project”, Power point presentation.

· Eurocham Myanmar (2016), Manufacturing Guide 2016.

· GRET (July 2016), "Data Collection of Urban Services Business Operations Plans - Reports on

Yangon, Mandalay and Monywa Solid Waste Management Service".

· IGES Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (January 2017), "Waste Management in

Myanmar: Current Status, Key Challenges and Recommendations for National and City Waste

Management Strategies", ISBN 978-4-88788-197-6.

· Yangon City Development Committee (March 2017), “Solid Waste Management in Yangon

City”, Power point presentation by Dr. Aung Myint Maw of the PCCD Yangon, presented at the

occasion of the Myanmar Netherlands Workshop on Integrated Solid Waste Management on 23

March 2017.


Annex 1. List of contacts

M = Meeting with (member of) Expert Team?

W = Participated in the Workshop?

Type? 1=Public authority; 2=Dutch Embassy network in Myanmar; 3=Business Associations; 4=Private

sector; 5=Dutch companies in Myanmar; 6=NGO's

Note: A list of contact details is available upon request

M? S? Type Organization / Location Name representative

1 1 6 Alley Garden Project Emilie Röell

1 5 ARCADIS Design & Consultancy Tanya Huizer

1 5 ARCADIS Design & Consultancy Johannes de Groot

1 6 BORDA Han Thi Htun

1 6 British Embassy Dr. Khine Zar Lin

1 4 CAG Engineering Co., Ltd Myo Myint Aung

1 4 CAG Engineering Co., Ltd Ne Myo Thein (George)

1 4 CAG Engineering Co., Ltd Ye Hein Aung

1 4 CEA Projects Co Ltd John L Hamilton

1 1 6 CESVI Friedor Jeske

1 6 CESVI Patrizia Gattoni

1 4 City Mart Holdings Hnin Lae Win

1 1 City of Mandalay H.E. Dr. Ye Lwin

1 1 City of Yangon H.E. U Maung Maung Soe

1 4 Coca Cola Pinya Beverages Myanmar Ltd Sandy Chapman

1 4 Coca Cola Pinya Beverages Myanmar Ltd Zeyar Chit

1 1 6 DFID/British Embassy Kirstyn Thomson

1 6 DFID/British Embassy Robin Cross

1 1 DICA San Myint

1 1 2 Embassy of the Netherlands Wouter Jurgens

1 1 2 Embassy of the Netherlands Carola Baller

1 1 2 Embassy of the Netherlands Sandar Myint

1 2 Embassy of the Netherlands Aung Myint Oo

1 1 4 Energize Myanmar Billy Harkin

1 1 4 Environmental Quality Management Ohnmar May Tin Hlaing

1 6 EU Delegation Adrius Kuduba

1 1 3 EuroCham Filip Lauwerysen

1 4 Founder/ Crazy About Water Frodo van Oostveen

1 6 Frontier Jared Downing

1 4 GEA Jord Figee

1 4 Golden Dowa Eco-System Myanmar Co. Kei Nagata


1 6 GRET Thibaut Le Loc'H

1 4 JFE Engineering Corporation Tsutomu Oyama

1 4 JFE Engineering Corporation Hideki Ito

1 4 JFE Engineering Corporation Tomoharu Gentsu

1 6 JICA Noriko Sakurai

1 4 Local Architect, Article 25 Juila May Thandar Soe

1 4 Mandalay cement industries co. ltd. Aung Zay Ya (Ethan Hong)

1 3 Mandalay Myotha Industrial Developmen Yan Naung

1 3 Mandalay Myotha Industrial Development Dr. Tun Tun Aung (Jack Hong)

1 3 Mandalay Reg. Cc. Commerce and Industry Dr. Maung Maung

1 3 Mandalay Reg. Cc. Commerce and Industry Kyaw Min

1 3 Mandalay Reg. Cc. Commerce and Industry Myo Kyaw.Win

1 3 Mandalay Reg. Cc. Commerce and Industry Aung Than

1 1 Meikhtila Town Development Committee Nila Win

1 1 Meikhtila Town Development Committee Myo Htet Zaw

1 6 MER commission Arend Kolhoff

1 1

Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Forestry

and Energy, Government of Yangon Region H.E. U Han Htoon

1 1 Ministry of Health and Sports Khin Maung Lwin

1 1

Ministry of Natural Resources and

Conservation (MoNREC) Khin Thida Tin

1 1 6 Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business Mrs Vicky Bowman

1 3 Myanmar Engineering Society Aung Myint

1 1 Orgaworld/Moduworld Julius L. de Jong

1 Orgaworld/Moduworld Aung Nay Lin

1 1 6 Peace Nexus Foundation Sophia Naing

1 4 Property Solutions Myo Maw Oo

1 6 Pyoe Pin Kyawe Phyo Pyo Aye

1 4 Royal Haskoning DHV Kyaw Lin Htet

1 4 Royal Haskoning DHV Boy Santhos van der Sterre

1 4 Royal Haskoning DHV Rebecca Groot

1 1 6 SMART Myanmar Mr Jacob Andrew Clere

1 6 SMART Myanmar, Document & Compliance Moo Kho Paw

1 6 SMART Myanmar, Document & Compliance Myo Maw Oo

1 6 Social Entrepreneur Harald Friedl

1 4 SUEZ SAFEGE Gary Moys

1 4 Trade Wind Co. Ltd San Oo

1 1 6 UNIDO Thant Zin

1 6 UNIDO Michele Boario

1 4 VS Hem (1970) Seree Laisanitsereekul

1 4 Wa Minn Group U Naung Kun Myint Wai


1 6 World Wildlife Fund Gaurav Gupta

1 4 XtP DevCo Frank Raschke

1 1 1 YCDC Pollution Control / Cleansing Dept Dr. Aung Myint Maw

1 1 YCDC Pollution Control / Cleansing Dept Lt. Col. Cho Tun Aung

1 1 YCDC Pollution Control / Cleansing Dept Khin Hnin Aye

1 4 Zeya and Associates Sabarinathan Ravichandran

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© Netherlands Enterprise Agency | June 2017

Publication number: RVO-060-1701/RP-INT

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